


Poking the Bear

by misbegotten



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-23
Updated: 2010-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:04:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck gets into Casey's head. He thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poking the Bear

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [danakate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/danakate) and [damalur](http://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur) for the awesome beta.  
> Spoilers: Up through 2.02 Chuck Versus the Seduction.  
> Warnings: NC-17, a bit

Chuck's playing a game called Poke the Bear.

The bear is, of course, Major John Casey. The resemblance is obvious. Grr.

Poke the Bear is a combination Chuck-desensitization program for Casey and an attempt to get a better read on the guy. So far, it mostly involves hanging around Casey's apartment. Chuck is not entirely sure why he feels compelled to rattle the NSA agent's cage. He tells himself it's the same reason he keeps trying to ferret out (ooh, another good animal metaphor) secrets about Sarah -- where she's from, where she's lived, where she's killed... okay, maybe not so much of that. In Chuck's happy place, Sarah is the spy who does daring deeds for her country with no bloodshed and definitely no sleeping with the enemy.

But Casey is more of a known quantity. He's brutally honest about what he is (part-time Buy More employee, full-time NSA agent) and what he does (kills people, or keeps them from killing Chuck). It's that last quality that has Chuck transfixed. Here is a guy who has spent most of his adult life in the service of his country and now he sells Beastmasters at Buy More so he can keep Chuck's ass safe.

Well, not his _ass_ specifically. In Chuck's happy place, Sarah is the one looking at Chuck's ass. While he's perfectly comfortable with a member of the same gender ogling his buttocks, thank you very much, it doesn't seem to be Casey's thing. Not that he's thought ~~long and hard~~ about Casey's thing, but somehow Chuck doesn't think that _he_ is Casey's thing and he doesn't ever want to be on the wrong end of Casey's thing.

Still, Chuck can't help wondering what Casey's thing is, other than cleaning his guns (not a metaphor). Hence, Poke the Bear.

*

Chuck is rummaging in Casey's alarmingly sterile refrigerator. "Hey Casey, got any mustard?"

Casey grunts, which Chuck takes to mean, "Do you _see_ any mustard, doofus?" He's got some deadly-looking thing disassembled on his coffee table, and is busy polishing bits of it to a high shine.

Chuck gives up on mustard and folds the cheese and turkey sandwich he's created. "You need condiments, buddy. A sandwich isn't a sandwich without condiments."

Casey responds with pointed silence, which Chuck takes to mean, "You're getting crumbs on your shirt, braniac." He brushes off the crumbs, then guiltily looks around for a broom because moving the crumbs to Casey's floor doesn't seem polite.

Casey polishes another piece of dangerous whatsit while Chuck rubs the crumbs into the floor with his shoe. Satisfied that his crime has somehow been purged, he grabs a plate from the dish drainer and puts the other sandwich he made on it. He sets it down on the coffee table, close enough to the bits of scattered scariness that Casey can't help but see it.

Casey looks up. Chuck grins and proclaims, "Voila! One non-condimented sandwich. Eat up, Casey. Growing NSA agents need their vitamins."

Casey grunts, which Chuck takes to mean, "Deadly assassins don't need vitamins, moron." But he does take a bite of the sandwich. Chuck considers that the bits of metal look a little more mundane when the trained killer handling them is eating turkey and cheese on whole wheat.

*

When Carina breezes out of town, Chuck thinks that maybe he's got Casey's number. A weak spot for dangerous women is something they seem to have in common, but Chuck's efforts at bonding seem to no avail.

"So, that Carina. One heck of a girl, am I right?"

Okay, could he be any more lame? Casey doesn't seem to think so, because he just flips the television from muted Fox News to muted ESPN. Chuck fidgets on the other end of the couch.

"She really pulled the wool over your eyes. I mean, our eyes. _Our eyes_," Chuck stresses, though he's not sure whether he's putting more emphasis on "our" or "eyes" because now that the image is in his head all he can picture is John Casey tied to a headboard. Chuck's not sure what the rules of the spy game are, but he thinks it's somehow cheating to have the hots for both his handlers at the same time.

Casey starts flipping channels rapidly, and Chuck feels the beginnings of an Intersect-like headache as images whir by.

"I think it was a learning experience for all of us. Spies -- other spies, I mean, aren't exactly... trustworthy," Chuck offers tentatively.

"Hm," Casey grunts. It's approval mixed with a smidgen of camaraderie.

He flips the channel to Terminator 2 on TBS and lets Chuck stay until the very end.

*

"Bryce Larkin is a jerk." Chuck throws himself on Casey's couch and pouts at the ceiling. He knows it's not a good look on him, but neither is that stupid cross-eyed facial tic that he inherited along with the Intersect. Which he got from Bryce Larkin, the jerk.

"I could have told you that," Casey says simply, grabbing two beers from the fridge and handing one to Chuck.

The trip back from Stanford (or CIA High, as Casey was now calling it) had been anticlimactic compared to viewing the disc of Bryce giving Chuck his Stanford walking papers. While Sarah had been sympathetic, Chuck needs to talk to someone who understands. Understands that Bryce Larkin is a jerk.

"I mean, who does he think he is, deciding my future for me?"

Casey takes a pull of his beer and grunts sympathetically.

"Getting me kicked out of college because I'm too nice to be a jerk like him? What the hell?"

Casey nods.

"If I ever see him again, I'm gonna -- gonna -- be really surprised that he's alive, I guess."

Casey's eyes go flat for a second and he says softly, "That isn't going to happen."

Chuck sets aside his beer. "Oh right." He feels even more depressed now, and adding alcohol to the mix just seems like a recipe for disaster.

Casey puts down his own bottle and laces his fingers behind his head. "So Larkin kept you from years of lying to your friends and family and possibly getting killed. What an asshole."

Chuck feels a grin pulling at the side of his mouth. "Casey, you're a jerk."

Casey smiles.

*

Ilsa is... well, scary. Not because she's a badass spy and she has the guts to call Casey "Sugar Bear" (see, Chuck's not the only one who goes there in his brain), but because Casey loved her when he didn't know she was a spy. At least, that's what Chuck assumes, but you have to assume a lot when trying to figure out Casey because the man simply does not give you much to go on. And Casey thought she was the whole package -- smart, beautiful, sexy, and not in the spy trade. So to Casey she was the real deal. Well, the real fake deal. And maybe Casey really wants to settle down, do the 2.3 kids and the suburban home and a Crown Vic in the driveway.

Maybe he really doesn't want to be tied to Chuck.

Okay, so that's the really scary part. And it's the reason there's a big smile on his face when Ilsa waltzes out of the courtyard and out of Casey's life.

So Chuck waits until enough time has passed and then says aloud, in his bugged bedroom, "I'm sorry Ilsa had to leave. But I'm glad you're sticking around."

Chuck likes to think that he gets a #16 grunt, mixed annoyance and grudging fondness, in response.

*

 

"Casey, why is my picture on your Wheel of Death?"

 

"There's no bullet hole in it, is there?"

 

And that's the last they speak on the subject.

*

Showing up on Casey's doorstep in a white jacket with a red rose is pretty much the opposite of smart. Chuck's heard Casey get on Sarah's case about not getting compromised, and here he is in the Roan seduction special advertising "Hey, guess whose pants I just tried to get in?"

He doesn't bother knocking -- the superspy scanner recognizes him and lets him in -- so catching Casey in his robe isn't much of a surprise. Casey's reaction to his appearance is; he looks at Chuck's getup and freezes like a startled rabbit.

"Hi Casey," Chuck says. "Sorry to barge in on you."

Casey grunts, which Chuck takes to mean "Mi Casa es su Casa." Chuck slides down onto the couch next to Casey and props his feet on the coffee table.

"What are you doing here, Chuck?" Casey asks evenly. There's something a little too studied about Casey's tone, and Chuck begins to feel even more awkward and uncomfortable than he did before he dropped by. Maybe the "Mi Casa" grunt really meant "Why are you always in my apartment, dumbass?"

"I just--" Chuck waves the hand holding the rose in the air, as if it can produce some coherence for him. "I feel like an idiot."

"You look like an idiot," Casey says, relaxing somewhat. "What's eating you?"

"Bryce is back in town."

Casey raises an eyebrow at that, but just shrugs. "And?"

"Well doesn't it bug you? The way he just waltzes into town and takes up with--" Chuck stutters to a halt when he realizes he's making a bigger deal out of this than he means to. It just stings, always coming in second to Bryce.

"Listen, who Walker sleeps with is none of my concern as long as it doesn't jeopardize the mission. Frankly, I don't want to know." Casey smirks (there are at least a dozen things Chuck hates about Casey, and that smirk is at the top). "And we'll find out what Larkin wants soon enough. So why don't you just relax?"

Chuck snorts. "You're giving me advice on relaxing? Casey, your idea of a good time is polishing your guns. No offense."

"None taken." Casey reaches out and pulls on Chuck's lapel. "There are other ways of relaxing, you know. Roan's favorite is this."

"This?" Chuck echoes blankly. Then he remembers the white jacket and a slow flush creeps up his face. "Oh, listen Casey I didn't mean..."

Casey has put the fingers of one hand behind Chuck's neck, silencing him completely with just that steady pressure. As he draws Chuck closer and touches his lips to Chuck's, all Chuck can think is, "Chuck Desensitization Program = Success!" Wildly successful, if the nip on Chuck's lower lip is any evidence.

"Um, listen Casey, I've got to be totally honest here -- I didn't come over to put the moves on you."

"Uh huh," Casey growls, his palm cupping Chuck's burgeoning erection, and Chuck feels that flush again along with a slow shiver that feels spine-meltingly good. "You struck out with Sarah and Bryce, so I'm your consolation prize."

"No!" Chuck protests -- and that's not fair, he never wanted Bryce so much as he wanted to _be_ Bryce -- "But that's kinda true, I guess. I just mean, I never thought of you thinking of me in that way, you know?"

Casey's nibbling his way down Chuck's chin to his neck, and he doesn't bother to raise his head to answer, "What do you think I'm thinking now, smart guy?"

"_I'm_ thinking that -- eooh -- that feels good. But seriously, is this some sort of Pavlovian thing? You spies see a white jacket and a rose and..."

Casey smirks (there are at least a dozen things Chuck likes about Casey right this instant, and the smirk is in the top three) and urges Chuck out of the jacket, letting the rose fall to the floor. "Let's find out."

*

Making out on Casey's couch is fantastic. Fucking in his bed is bliss. Casey's got this thing he does with his fingers that pretty much leaves Chuck hearing bells, and combined with the tight friction of Casey's mouth on his cock he barely has time to fist the sheets before he's coming. Later Casey breaches him slowly, more gently than Chuck ever would have suspected (but then again this is a guy who spends hours polishing his guns, metaphor intended). He thrusts into Chuck sweetly -- more bells -- and strokes Chuck's cock back to a gradual climax before coming with Chuck's name on his lips. Even later, when Chuck is floating on the sated edge of sleep, he can't help thinking that his not very systematic study of the workings of Casey's mind needs a lot more study.

When Chuck wakes in the morning, he hears Casey's low rumble downstairs and wonders whether he's reporting Mission Accomplished to General Beckman. He's not sure he cares. The smell of coffee accompanies Casey's return up the stairs and Chuck takes the offered cup greedily. "You are truly an angel of the morning, sir," he salutes Casey. Casey gets this look which Chuck takes to mean "Shut your face" and "You big goof" and the thought makes him smile.

Trying for casual, Chuck asks, "So what do we do from here?"

Casey tilts his head, considering. "I take a shower," he pronounces. "You go home and get cleaned up. We pretend this never happened."

Chuck's good mood dissipates. He feels lower than low, but hides it with a grunt into his coffee cup, which he hopes Casey takes as "Whatever you say, dude" and not "You're breaking my heart, you evil assassin bastard."

Casey smirks. "Or, we go to work, and if you're lucky I'll give you a blowjob in the bathroom on my fifteen minute break."

Chuck beams. "I choose door number two." _Sugar Bear_, he adds in his head.

Playing Poke the Bear is _awesome_.


End file.
